Three ways to improve your retirement planning

Many people are behind when it comes to retirement planning.

But it doesn't have to be that way. There are some easy and, quite frankly, painless ways for you to get in front of proverbial eight ball. Here's what experts recommend.

Plan, plan, plan. According to a recent MassMutual Financial Group study, the happiest retirees took concrete steps to plan financially and emotionally at least five years before retirement.

What are those steps? On the financial side, Elaine Sarsynski, executive vice president, MassMutual Retirement Services, says 73% calculated the best time to collect Social Security; 65% calculated a target for how much money they needed to retire; 60% estimated their medical and dental expenses in retirement: 58% worked with a financial adviser; and 51% percent created a budget for retirement and increased their savings.

On the emotional side, 50% made new friends, reconnected with old friends or both; 44% focused on reinvigorating their relationship with their spouse or partner; and 23% developed a new hobby.

More: What workers expect in retirement and what steps help them achieve the retirement they want .

Work for an employer that sponsors a retirement plan. If you want to be successful at planning for retirement, work for a company that offers you a traditional defined benefit plan and/or a defined contribution plan.

Consider: The latest findings from National Retirement Risk Index (NRRI), published by the Center for Retirement Research (CRR) at Boston College, reveals that households with access to a workplace retirement plan are less at risk of not being able to maintain their standard of living in retirement.

In addition, the type of plan is also a key factor, according to the NRRI, which is sponsored by Prudential. For instance, just 20% of households with a defined benefit plan through their current employer are at risk, while 53% with only a defined contribution plan are at risk. By contrast, nearly seven in 10 (68%) households with no employer-sponsored retirement are at risk of not being able to maintain their standard of living.

Consider the consequences of your actions. A decision and its consequences are often disconnected, says Warren Cormier, the CEO of Boston Research Technologies and the co-founder of the RAND Behavioral Finance Forum, in a recent Plan sponsor report. And it's particularly true when it comes to retirement planning. "Rarely can people immediately discern an impact after making a decision about their retirement plan portfolios," Cormier was quoted as saying.

So what can you do discern the consequences before making any retirement-planning decisions? For starters, ask your plan sponsor and plan provider for help. "The onus is not on the participant to identify the consequences of actions (including inaction — which is an action in itself), says Cormier.

"The onus is on the plan sponsors and service providers to frame the consequences of participants' actions. Giving the participants defaults and/or automaticity, for example, does not engage, nor empower participants, nor do they detail the consequences of actions," says Cormier.

In a sense, Cormier says they are the antithesis of engagement. "Participants tend to avoid painful actions, such as increasing deferral rates, when they do not clearly see a downside to doing nothing," he says. "Our … research shows that precisely framing the consequences of actions, both positive and negative, has a substantial effect on participants' decisions."

But what if you want to get a sense of the consequences of your actions or inaction on your retirement plan? Cormier says highly motivated participant can get information on the consequences of their actions, or at least comparisons of the impact of different decisions from counselors in their employer benefits department, or by calling their retirement plan's customer service representatives.

"Additionally, if they are fortunate enough to have a good financial planner, they should be able to get great information on the long-term impacts of their deferral rate, cashing out, taking a loan, expense ratios and fees, and the like," Cormier says. "But for the majority of participants who don't even know what questions to ask, they will need to rely on their employer to outline the impacts that their decisions can have."

Finally, he says the National Association of Retirement Plan Participants has resources on its website that address the consequences of retirement-planning actions and inaction in "plain talk."

Robert Powell is editor of Retirement Weekly, contributes regularly to USA TODAY, The Wall Street Journal and MarketWatch and teaches at Boston University.